Writing what is on my mind and open for comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Andy Rooney was truely an American Treasure the likes which we may not see again in our lifetime and will be missed. When he retired from 60 Minutes last month I was saddened, but also hopeful to see him pop up elsewhere from time to time. After all, he was a writer and a journalist – it was in his blood. You could always count on him to write what he ment and mean what he wrote. I looked forward to reading or listening to what he had to say. As our country and world changed over the years becoming overly sensative and way too politicly correct we could count on Mr. Rooney to say or write the things that most of us were thinking or feeling but were too scared to say. He had a unique qualification to write the things he did in the manner he did because he had seen more than a lot of us will ever see. I believe he understood more about the human condition because of his life’s experiences and we are all richer for it.

Thank you Mr. Rooney for your insight, opinions, humor and stories that you shared with us for so many years. Rest in peace. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends for their loss.

Ah, the handbag/purse! Unlike some women, I do not like carrying one. There are several reasons for this. Crooks like to snatch them, you have to find a place to put them when not carrying them, they slow you down when getting in and out of a vehicle, people bump into them while you are walking and of course my favorite – they can become a junk collector. However they can and do serve a purpose on occasion so I have several; after all, you need certain bags for certain things.

At one point in my life I carried LARGE bags. My daughter use to call them my Mary Poppins bag. The reason for this is simple, what ever someone needed I seemed to have it in there. For example; writing supplies, first aid items, tools, sewing kit and so forth. Now a days I still have these items close at hand but sometimes it is a small purse with a scaled down version (everything else is generally in the car). My daughter seemed to be quite pleased to see the “Poppins” bags vanish and see her mother move into the 21st century. Of course now that she is a Mom with a toddler and one on the way I think she understands better about the time her own mom carried all that stuff.

So, if you were to judge me on the contents of my handbag/purse you say that I am a person that likes to be prepared for just about anything that comes my way. And is that such a bad thing? On the occasions that I do not have one (just a wallet in one hip pocket and a rabbit skinnin’ knife in the other) you would say that I’m a person that knows what I’m after and doesn’t waist time fooling around. Also not such a bad thing I think. And for those of you who might be wondering – yes, the knife comes with me every where 🙂 it folds up, is small, stows away easily and many uses.

Sorry for the lapse, but we had to cut expenses last year and one of the first things to go was the internet. I am now WiFi (intermittently) and will try to post some more. So please keep checking back and feel free to subscribe 🙂

I do not believe that there is a phrase that could ever be so true! At least in this household. This is our most current situation:

We are one of the millions of households being held captive by our government with the extension of unemployment benefits and lack of jobs (especially for folks our age, too young to retire and at the age nobody wants to hire us). We have been making it from cut off notice to cut off notice and our diet consists of pasta, cheap meat and peanut butter (for me). We have not been out for over a year and the past week has been a real knee slapper!

The townhouse behind us and to the side had a major water connection burst 3 days ago; there was water everywhere downstairs. Our carpet is barely dry from that and as I type he is downstairs with the green machine sucking up water in the livingroom because the neighbor next door has sprung a leak! We are not real sure what the source is, but it is a mess! Yes, it is almost 5a.m. and I’m up here because he likes to do things his own way, which is not my way. Well, women with husbands of any length of time understand what I am getting at here. It is best to just leave him be and do his thing so I removed myself after stupidly making a comment about going in the direction of the carpet grain and came up here to post this.

I will go next door in a few hours and ask the new neighbors what the deal is. I know, you are probably asking why not wake them now? Well, the water is not flowing and appears that whatever happened has been dealt with. But they should know that it has affected us and possibly the folks behind them. They are renters and I am sure informing their neighbors never crossed their minds.

Well, I have made it through another day. The heat wave around here the past few days has been tough with no A/C in the car or house. Thank goodness we have fans in every room of the house. As for the car, I never used the a/c much when it did work. Just never really liked that car a/c smell and would rather feel the fresh air. I do miss it however when driving in town.

Hopefully there will some employment for us in the next few weeks so we can afford to have the house a/c taken care of. Jobs are hard to find in our area. Especially for folks like us in their mid to late 50’s with no college, business going out of business or cutting back, plants laying off (that is how he became unemployed) and of course we are competing with a lot of younger people. It has been very frustrating for us both.

The thing that gets me is that we are both willing to work at jobs outside our fields and for less (some cases LOTS) than our previous jobs we still get that same old company line of “your last job paid more than this one” or “we can’t pay you what you are accustomed to”. I think if I hear something like that again I’ll just flip! And why does experience and stability not count anymore? It is like we are being punished for having done our job for so long and lived to be our age. Is it just me or is there something terribly wrong with that?

We both just want a job, any job that we can do, a reason to get up in the morning, a purpose to our day. Is that so much to ask for? It does not matter how much less/beneath our prior jobs it is. We just want to be able to pay our bills and keep our home. Any way, like I said at the top, another day survived. And tomorrow is another day, anything is possible (I hope).

I have a blog elsewhere but thought I would try this out. There are times that it is nice to put my thoughts, observations and questions to paper. Okay, so this would be putting it to screen. Hopefully there will be others out here in cyberspace that are like me and we can share with anyone that cares to join.

If nothing else, at least this will be a place for me to put things down and get them out of my head. I hope that anybody that stumbles onto this will enjoy and even participate. More later, have a great day!